[Halliwell puts his hand on Orton's leg. Orton brushes it off] Joe Orton: No. Have a wank. Kenneth Halliwell: Have a wank? Have a wank? I can't just have a wank. I need three days' notice to have a wank. You can just stand there and do it. Me, it's like organizing D-Day. Forces have to be assembled, magazines bought, the past dredged for some suitably unsavoury episode, the dog-eared thought of which can still produce a faint flicker of desire! Have a wank, it'd be easier to raise the Titanic.

Joe Orton: [accepting a drama award] My plays are about getting away with it, and the ones who get away with it are the guilty ones. It's the innocents who get it in the neck. But that all seems pretty true to life to me. Not a fantasy at all. I've got away with it *so far* [hoisting trophy] Joe Orton: and I'm going to go on.

Joe Orton: I think I'll retire. Lick my wounds. Or have them licked for me.

[Orton is having his portrait painted, naked] Joe Orton: When I die I want people to say, 'He was the most perfectly developed playwright of his day.'

[Paul McCartney is going to visit and Joe and Kenneth are tidying frantically] Kenneth Halliwell: This is what it must be like when one meets the Queen! Joe Orton: Except when one meets the Queen one *generally* hasn't threatened to shove one's typewriter up her arse.

Joe Orton: I take it they [the Beatles] Joe Orton: all sleep together... Brian Epstein: They do NOT. Joe Orton: But they're all very pretty. I imagined they just had a good time... sang, smoked, fucked everything in sight including each other. I thought that was what success meant.